Fórum Permanente Series

As thoughts ideas suspend time, but when put into practice they are again subject to time.

Fórum Permanente is a cultural mediation platform inspired by the 1960s and 1970s lab-museums, collaborative initiatives in art museums that promoted experimental artistic practices, new forms of exhibition, communication and dissemination, as well as the critical revision of traditional museological methodologies. European promoters of these critical-creative processes include Pontus Hulten, Harald Szeemann, Willem Sandberg and Jean Leering; and in Brazil, Walter Zanini, the first curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo, from 1963 to 1978, and subsequent curator of the 16th and 17th São Paulo Biennial. In the mid-1990s, new mediation and information structures led to research and experimentation involving the development of virtual extensions for the existing cultural apparatus. At the University of São Paulo (USP), through contextual-institutional critical action based on existing demands, concerns, uncertainties and risks, several frontlines were put into place. In 1994, the Interdepartmental and Multidisciplinary Electronic Interface Laboratory at the IT Centre of the School of Communication and Arts (NICA) was founded and in 1995 the first University of São Paulo web interface was created. USPonline, more than an online information site, was configured as a metaphor of the University, establishing itself as a cultural interface, connecting cultural and knowledge systems with information systems. Prior to the launch of Fórum Permanente in 2003, the idea of a museum in virtuality had been extensively discussed in a workshop hosted by the NICA in March 1996 involving artists, cultural producers and postgraduate students. From this debate, the Museum of the In(consequent) Collective (cf. http://www.eca.usp.br/prof/martin/in_consequente/) was born.

What are the foundations of a museum in virtuality? What is its constitution and how does it evolve from these foundations? How is it maintained and how does it expand? Which relationships must be encouraged in the exchanges between the real and the virtual?

General agreement: the emphasis is not on the form or format, or even on the means of support. That is, the primary concern is not the building, the object, the artwork, the book or the text – which are the foundations of Material Culture – but the process instead: the formatting, the development, the dynamics and the maintenance of a museological context in the virtual world, counterpointing the real world, that is, a museological context in the space and time of the local cultural system, which is in turn related to a globalised cultural condition.

The Internet and its graphic interface, which we call the World Wide Web – with its simplicity, and flexibility in terms of use and development – became the most suitable environment for the development of a lab-museum project today, as it is capable of meeting both local and global demands.

Fórum Permanente's trajectory gives us some answers:

What are the foundations of a museum in virtuality? Society. What is its constitution and how does it evolve from these foundations? How is it maintained and how does it expand? Through incentives from society, community commitment and collective work supported by a structure that facilitates communication, exchange and interaction between the constituting parts. But what kind of society is this? An open, democratic, transparent and public society, opposed to the segmentation of knowledge and, therefore, to the limitations of the specialised market. A society whose mission is to offer free access to quality information and knowledge generated within its domains and beyond them, as well as external sources selected by elective, conceptual, philosophical and operational affinities.

Looking back, this society could have been that initially formed by a group of the 1996 workshop, self-proclaimed the (In)Consequents. This 'Society of the (In)Consequents' was the launching pad for the Museum of the (In)Consequent Collective. This platform-museum lasted for some years (until 2001), at least as a suggestive interface on the web, but failed due to a lack of resources and the disengagement of the original group but also, more importantly, because it was ahead of its time. The socialisation
of their ideals, that is, the process of absorption of their ideas in a social-cultural context, which was fundamental for its materialisation, only began in mid-2003 with the creation of a project presented to the Goethe-Institut of São Paulo. The project, named 'Permanent Forum: Art Museums between the Public and Private Domains', as a critical mediation platform, intended to promote and coordinate the debate – for at least two years – on the role of the contemporary art museum in the local cultural context where the vast majority of museums and similar institutions have been going through chronic, permanent institutional crisis.

Time is fascinating. The two years initially proposed for the duration of the project have been multiplied. In October 2010 Fórum Permanente celebrated its seventh year of existence. The consequence and inconsequence of this enterprise shows that certain ideas resist time, and that even after a certain period of hibernation, ultimately they end up finding the right time to be activated and materialised. If at the time of its inception this 'society' was constituted by a small group – the (In)Consequents – today's Fórum Permanente's society is joined by a multitude. Not only individuals, institutions and other forms of collective organisation, but also an expanded public whose categorisation is difficult, as the site is accessed on a global scale. Fórum Permanente's society, therefore, constitutes a network or – dare we say it – a complexity. As a platform for cultural action and mediation within the meeting point/crossover between
the real and the virtual, it acts on a national and international basis throughout the different layers of contemporary art. It relies on a network of partnerships with different agents in the field of art and culture, as well as foreign art institutions and cultural agencies. Its activity includes curating discursive and dialogic events, organising workshops on curatorship, coordinating research, editing a magazine, organising specialised publications, promoting events related to art institutions and contemporary art, online streaming of activities and publishing critical reports about these activities. The website www.forumpermanente.org works in a hybrid way: as lab-museum, as magazine and as live archive, by gathering projects, research, debates and dossiers, as well as making available written material and video records of the activities. The website content is published under a free license, allowing its reproduction for noncommercial purposes. The content is very useful to teachers, researchers, artists and
students, amongst others.

In São Paulo, nearly all cultural institutions devoted to contemporary art have joined Fórum Permanente's network. Our activities are mainly based in São Paulo, but the platform has supported events in other cities as well, including Recife, Salvador, Madrid and Arnhem, with the aim of decentralising and achieving further outreach. Different contemporary art agents, both Brazilian and international, are involved in its activities. Having hosted more than 110 face-to-face events, whose records and reports are available in our archives, the organisation produces an average of 15 annual events, which range from lectures and workshops to meetings and seminars. The site is currently a reference both nationally and internationally. With 4,700 MB, 2,170 pages and 1,820 images, the site is accessed by approximately 320 visitors every day, who browse approximately 875 pages. These users are based in 337 cities in Brazil and 1,240 cities across the globe (2010 data). Its international reach includes Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Cuba, Mexico, Angola, Mozambique, Portugal, Korea, Sweden, Norway, England, Ireland and most mainland European countries, as well as the US and Canada. Amongst the more curious data, it is worth mentioning that Berlin is 9th in the ranking of cities with most clicks, while Lisbon is 11th, Madrid 17th and Bogota 22nd.

Due to the longevity and consistency we have secured, we currently enjoy the possibility of introducing new challenges to Fórum Permanente, including the ongoing project to develop research with a national and international scope. Our first research has been carried out through a three-way partnership between the Brazilian Ministry of Culture, the Iberê Camargo Foundation and Fórum Permanente. This research aims to map the economy of exhibitions in Brazil over the last 10 years. Moreover, one of our most cherished wishes is now becoming a reality: the launch of our own publications based on Fórum Permanente's rich and diversified extensive discursive collection. Our aim is to publish printed editions that promote – in a focused way – the conceptual and critical framework published online by Fórum Permanente. Initially the focus would be on art museums, their institutional crisis and, as a counterpoint, contemporary art production. Through the passage of time, Fórum Permanente has broadened the debate by including topics of great importance today, such as curatorship, cultural mediation, contemporary art mega-exhibitions, the public sphere of culture, artists' residencies, accessibility and the art's market, amongst others. With the launch of the Programa Brasil Arte Contemporânea (Contemporary Art Brazil Programme) – the outcome of a partnership between the Ministry of Culture and the São Paulo Biennial Foundation – we had the opportunity to invest in this project by participating in the competition "Contemporary Art Publication in a Foreign Language Award". With the aim of securing the publication of Fórum Permanente's Book Collection, we presented 3 proposals, which were all successful.

Museum Art Today, Critical Reports: 27th São Paulo Biennial Seminars and Modes of Representation of the São Paulo Biennial are a reflection of the route our editorial approach is taking, both in terms of format and theme. The collection is presented through compilations organised by theme, publications of critical reports on the events recorded online and books promoting the debate around the institutionalisationof art, both locally and globally. 

Facing the current state of art and culture globalisation, we have taken upon ourselves the commitment to publish bilingual books, starting with the English versions. However, the debate stems from the local, Brazilian reality, its cultural institutions and contemporary art.

Martin Grossmann
Series Editor
Curator-Coordinator